Give yourself and your loved ones the gifts of health and safety this holiday season, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests. The agency outlines 12 ways to do that, beginning with a reminder that washing your hands with soap and clean running water for at least 20 seconds helps prevent the spread…  read on >  read on >

Healthy looking facial hair starts with healthy skin – even if you’re Santa. The American Academy of Dermatology suggests some tips to prevent dandruff, ingrown hair, acne and itch under beards, goatees and mustaches, whether you’ve been growing facial hair for a long time or just stopped shaving during the pandemic. “Whether your beard is…  read on >  read on >

Meditation done at an intense level may bring a significant boost to the inner workings of your immune system. The finding follows a blood sample analysis that took pre- and post-meditation snapshots of genetic activity among more than 100 men and women. That analysis suggested that meditation boosted the activity of hundreds of genes known…  read on >  read on >

MONDAY, Dec. 20, 2021 (HealthDay News) – Proctor & Gamble has voluntarily recalled several dry shampoo sprays and hair conditioner spray products with brand names Pantene, Herbal Essences, Aussie and Waterless because of benzene contamination. This follows an earlier recall of some aerosol spray Old Spice and Secret products, also manufactured by Proctor & Gamble.…  read on >  read on >

NFL players are four times more likely to die of Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS) than other people, new research finds, adding to known links between football-related head injuries and brain diseases, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). And the longer they played football, the greater their risk, the new study found. ALS, or…  read on >  read on >

Regular physical activity has all sorts of benefits, and now researchers say it may help ward off serious pneumonia. Until now, it wasn’t clear how exercise affected the risk of pneumonia, an infection of the lung tissue usually caused by bacteria or viruses. To find out, researchers analyzed 10 studies that included a total of…  read on >  read on >

Dirty air could cancel out some of the brain benefits of exercise, a new study suggests. “Physical activity is associated with improved markers of brain health in areas with lower air pollution,” said study author Melissa Furlong. “However, some beneficial effects essentially disappeared for vigorous physical activity in areas with the highest levels of air…  read on >  read on >

A heart condition, myocarditis, has been found in a number of U.S. college athletes who have had COVID-19, a new study finds. Myocarditis has also been linked in some young people to the COVID vaccine. But the odds are far greater that this inflammation of the heart muscle will occur in those who get COVID…  read on >  read on >